Sol-gel synthesis of DyCrO and 10% Fe-doped DyCrO nanoparticles with enhanced photocatalytic hydrogen production abilities.

DyCrO and 10% Fe-doped DyCrO nanoparticles have been synthesized using a sol-gel method to investigate their performance in photocatalytic hydrogen production from water. The synthesized nanoparticles have been characterized by performing X-ray diffraction, energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy and UV-visible spectrophotometric measurements. In addition, field emission scanning electron microscopy has been performed to observe their size and shape. The Fe-doped DyCrO nanoparticles show a significantly smaller band gap of 2.45 eV compared to the band gap of 2.82 eV shown by the DyCrO nanoparticles. The Fe-doped DyCrO nanoparticles show better photocatalytic activity in the degradation of rhodamine B (RhB) compared to the photocatalytic activity shown by both the DyCrO and Degussa P25 titania nanoparticles. The recycling and reuse of Fe-doped DyCrO four times for the photo-degradation of RhB shows that Fe-doped DyCrO is a stable and reusable photocatalyst. To evaluate the extent of the photocatalytic hydrogen production ability of the synthesized nanoparticles, a theoretical model has been developed to determine their "absorptance", a measure of the ability to absorb photons. Finally, 10% Fe-doped DyCrO proves itself to be an efficient photocatalyst as it demonstrated three times greater hydrogen production than Degussa P25.